During the current COVID-19 pandemic, many aspects of higher education have been forced to change. The move towards classes using online learning platforms is the most documented fundamental shift. Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams are de rigeur for educational institutions at all levels. Now we must adapt our evaluation and feedback processes to reflect these challenging times and new technologies.

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Time to Reevaluate Student
Evaluation in Higher Education
April 18, 2020
Bashar H. Malkawi and James M. Cooper
Bashar H. Malkawi is Director of Knowledge Management at the H.H. Dubai’s Ruler
Court, Government of Dubai, Legal Affairs Department and a former Dean of the
College of Law at the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.
James M. Cooper is Professor of Law at California Western School of Law in San
Diego. He has consulted for governments, international institutions, and non-
governmental organizations on higher education, rule of law, and technology transfer
issues.
During the current COVID-19 pandemic, many aspects of higher education have been
forced to change. The move towards classes using online learning platforms is the
most documented fundamental shift. Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams are de
rigeur for educational institutions at all levels. Now we must adapt our evaluation and
feedback processes to reflect these challenging times and new technologies.
It is no secret that the goal to protect public health has opened the door for radical
changes in the way teachers educate their students. With the emergence of new
methods for teaching, higher education has entered a time of intense transformation
that opens new possibilities for a more dynamic and engaging type of teaching.
Universities are redefining their roles. Relationships between instructors and students
are paramount to the core business of institutions of higher education. Because of the
reciprocal nature of the duties between professors and students, it is a fundamental
mistake to see students as customers or as clients; such a view incorrectly implies
that the primary duties in the relationship are those of the professors to the students
and virtually ignores the duties that students owe to their professors, to their fellow
students, to their institutions of higher learning and, equally importantly, to
themselves. Instructors should provide students with an environment conducive to
learning, the knowledge that will help them be successful in achieving their life goals,
materials and feedback that will help them learn, and ability to solve problems in their
lives. Now, more than ever, students have duties to their instructors, to their fellow
students, and to themselves. It is the students’ responsibility to be supportive of the
professor and fellow students by being tolerant of different points of view, prepared
for class, willing to work hard to complete course requirements, and willing to bring
their life experiences into the class to enrich discussions. Students must own their,
well, student-ness.
Student evaluation is required by higher education standard-setting bodies in almost
every country. The evaluation has been part of academic life for many years. It has
also been widely used as a general measurement of teaching performance. Student
evaluations, in turn, serve to provide guidance on improving educational delivery and
serve as performance indicators for professors and universities alike. However, the
current system of student evaluation suffers from several drawbacks.
Evaluation of those learning with us is quantitative in nature. Students have to answer
sets of questions and these answers are then graded. Questions in the end of course
evaluations are often far too general and are not specifically tailored to the courses
themselves. A doctrinal course in bankruptcy may require a different kind of teaching
than a biological laboratory practicum. Even courses within the same discipline or
college require some differentiation in assessment. The “one size fits all” approach is
clearly not working. The focus should be on the quality rather than on quantity of
questions that measure everything from the physical plant of the university
environment to the number of chairs and anything in between. In short, there must be
discipline-specific questions in student evaluations.
Student evaluations are usually undertaken at the end of the semester, at a time
when everyone is busy with final examinations. Scores are reported to the dean’s
office and the individual faculty member at a later stage.
The current system of student evaluation may not accurately reflect the teaching and
learning experience in the classroom, be it physical or virtual. Usually, a student who
failed a class is likely to give negative feedback, as opposed to someone who received
a high grade. Student evaluation seems to be an opportunity for university students to
express their opinions in every way possible in a non-transparent way. It is
unfortunate that sometimes students even go so far as to express offensive
comments. There is also the drawback of a low turnout among students to fill in the
evaluation form. It is no wonder that naysayers and critics are the loudest voices,
making meaningful feedback a pipedream.
The whole process of student evaluation is shrouded with secrecy. Confidentiality is
maintained in all stages of the evaluation process. In an effort to improve
performance,
development, and maintain excellence, an educational institution needs people who
are responsive to challenges and who want to share valuable ideas and opinion in a
civil manner. When a student does not provide his/her insights and information a
transparent manner, the instructor in this case would not have the information they
need to correct an issue for example. Of course, students are always hesitant to
express their ideas and opinions so that they are involved in silence behavior,
especially when the information is
considered by the instructor as something negative. However, In this case, student
must place their trust in their instructors. The instructor must build trust with students
so that they can express their views in transparent manner without being afraid of
retribution. One way to build trust is when students believe that the instructor has the
knowledge, skill, and expertise regarding the work that needs to be done.
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The COVID-19 crisis offers a window of opportunity to radically revise higher education
in a manner that is reflective of our current reality. An innovative way should be
developed to ensure that student evaluation is indeed contributing to advancing the
system, helping refine the professor’s approach to learning, and leveraging the
distance learning platforms through which we are all now forced to teach.
One possibility is a weekly evaluation which provides the benefit of continuing
feedback from students, to which the professor could react instantly. The student
evaluation should not be anonymous but rather, transparent. A relationship of trust
can be built between the student and professor. Students are more likely to respond
in an objective manner and they mature through this transparent system. Student
would put more effort into the evaluation. Students would become a major
stakeholder in the process.
Higher education institutions should take much needed bold and innovative steps to
advance the current system, including student and instructor evaluations. Now is the
time, given the paradigm shifting move to online education delivery – a method that
will be with us for the foreseeable future. And after we get assessment right, let’s
move to something a little easier – like the complete reworking of the finances of
higher education. As if.
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